Ascension

Our search for Raxxon led us to one of his higher-level flunkies, who was holed up in a nearby factory of some sort. We went around the back in the hopes of ambushing him, but he managed to give us the slip. We gave chase, but as soon as he was out of our sights, he was as good as gone. The building might as well have been built to be a hideout—a maze of branching corridors full of traps. It was also rather well protected, as we ran into armed guards, bugbears, alchemists (who, in fairness, were likely just workers we surprised), and several of their creations, including some sort of awful hybrid—an ugly combination of lion, scorpion, and dragon, easily ten feet long. With each encounter, my companions tussled while I attempted to continue chase, but I confess I was merely choosing what looked like the path of least resistance.

Eventually we found ourselves in some sort of storage room, with a host of paths in front of us. It was, by this point, late evening and the odds of us finding our quarry were slim to none, so we all agreed to give up and start fresh in the morning. We took the stairs up, which led us outside the building, near some sort of workers’ rest shack. We broke in, in hopes of finding some sort of useful information to at least partially salvage the mission. Instead we found a loaded pack belonging to our to-be informant. Norrund tossed the pack, finding several daggers, a sandwich, and a sizable sum of gold. Finnian ate the sandwich and searched the remainder of the room… and discovered whatshisname hiding in a closet.

Upon some very light interrogation, he gave up the location of Raxxon’s hideout—an underwater base outside the city. Access to and from the base is managed through the use of airtight tanks. A shepherd named Oak will be our contact for this. Dwarf-face also cautioned us to avoid Oak’s brother Dirk, for whatever that’s worth. In exchange for his cooperation, we gave him his gold and most of his daggers back. Finnian also owes him a sandwich.

If I can claim to stand for anything, it’s the fight against injustice—against those with power who exploit the innocent. It’s this fight that has led me down the path I walk today. Lords mistaking their wealth for real power, kings overstepping their authority. I even stood against a world-wide hunt against an entire class of people. I’ve weathered a lot of atrocities, but if there’s one thing that still turns my stomach and sets my blood to boil, it’s the wanton abuse of a child. To hear the guard talk, to hear Allen tell of his life, his family, and indeed our entire race, is something closer to animal than person in the eyes of Waterdeeps so-called guards.

We put them down, as befits monsters. The half-orcs fought hard, with malice and a twisted sort of amusement. I’d call them thugs, but that would disrespect proper thugs. I considered letting one live, as a warning to others within their ranks, but one does not spare monsters—they do not comprehend the nature of mercy. We moved the bodies to a less conspicuous location, and Allen introduced me to his brother, Erickson, and daughter Lacey. Apparently humans are not allowed in Waterdeep, at least not freely, but he had been assured he was given pass to conduct business. Either he was lied to, or these “guard” were overstepping their bounds. Either way, for his own safety, I offered to attend to his business on his behalf.

It turns out Allen owes a large sum to a broker named Raxxon—money he needed to buy his daughter out of slavery. We gave him what we could loot from the guards—some of which was already his—and I took his six gold back payment into town, to deliver to Roxxon’s collector, a ratkin claiming the title of Rymkol, the Snatcher. I advised him to keep the rest, as a man in his position often has need of a well-placed bribe.

In the city, we procured rooms at a respectable inn, the Viridian Chalice. I left my meager possessions, including most of my own money, stashed in the room, and set off to the tattoo parlor at the edge of the city, where Rymkol was said to be. I found him the back of a filthy alley, littered with tweakers and burnouts. As I passed, I heard one of them praising death. Likely just too far gone and begging for relief, but the words chilled me all the same. I found the so-called Snatcher in the back, as unpleasant as his race would imply, and after an entirely too-typical intimidation routine, he took the payment without incident. The tweaker was still muttering as I left the alley, so I decided to interrogate him, to find out how crazy he really was. Upon seeing me, he stopped his mantra and exclaimed that “he will be so glad to know I’m here”. I can only hope the gnome who once possessed this body has unfinished business in this city.

I do not know what the others did once we reached the city. I’m certain they all had personal business to attend to. I have more tasks myself, but they can wait until morning. For now, I need a proper night’s rest, for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.

After meeting back up with Finnian, Kestral and Norrund, we continued on towards Waterdeep. Our employer and travel companion, Milo turned out to be a shadier character than I had expected. I expected he had something unsavory or ill gained that we were transporting, but I never imagined it would be the energy and potentially souls of the dead. It’s a very intriguing idea but Milo was not forthcoming and probably unaware of the uses for these glowing stones.
We, and especially Norrund, managed to convince Milo to leave the stones and leave us alone. Unfortunately he also left with the cart. We used this time to hide the chests full of stones in two different places. Then it was time to head to Waterdeep on foot, but not before a very strange and unfortunate thing happened. One night during watch, i awoke to see a strange young girl standing in/at our campfire. Finnian attempted to attack her but she stopped the blade with what appeared to be minimal effort in the blink of an eye. Then she disappeared and so did Norrund. We searched for traces but found no clues. Kestral offered insight into the origins of the girl whom he called Selena. He said she should have been dead long ago and that she was extremely dangerous. We thought we’d never see Norrund again.
However after almost a week of traveling and soon before arriving in Waterdeep, Norrund miraculously appeared at our camp with stories of meeting a time traveler and some others.
I am so very tired and weary from this journey. I will attempt to make further notes in the future. For now I’m happy to have returned to civilization and escaped the undead that haunted the forest far on the trail. If I never go back there, I would enjoy that, but I do feel like at some point I may need to investigate things there, but I have no intentions to return soon.
For now I hope to at long last attempt to do what I came to this blasted continent for.

Then shadows. Then, missed.

Asleep, I awaken again. Another one of my dream realities? I’m sure of it.

Finnian is on top of me. Strange. Though I’ve heard his voice, I’ve never seen him in here before. Wherever that is. All that I see is a lone hill. At the top, a tree. Shallow graves. A house, in ruin, smoldering.

Finnian speaks to me, but I ignore it. I need no hallucination for company. All I seek are answers.

I approach the hill. The gravesites say Dorin and Alice. There is a symbol. A face, half corrupted? Meaningless, all of it.

The human follows me. He seems as confused as I am. It makes sense, I suppose. SELENA
Suddenly, movement in the rubble. I step back, Finnian stands at my side.SELENA
A girl emerges. Another of the undead.. but different? Not quite. Finnian tries to speak to it. It gives chase. We flee downhill, running along an endless looking path into the fog. I turn to see it right on our heels. SELENA
We awake

Also Blind Terror

Morning of the eleventh day of our journey, tensions were at an all-time high. We were finally all together again, but the half-orc crew that had been hired alongside ourselves was dead, as was a woman Vodarr had saved from Valmire. The accursed dead showed no signs of stopping their pursuit—indeed they seemed drawn to our cargo, which we now believed to be the souls of the dead. At this rate it would not be possible, much less profitable, to protect the cargo. In the interest of fulfilling any part of our bargain, and indeed escaping with our own lives, our only hope was to abandon the chests, give this unresting horde what it desires, and finish the journey alone. The only problem—convincing Milo to agree.

The others wanted to confront him as a group, but I felt that an unwise approach. Milo was already a suspicious and closely guarded man—if he felt we were ganging up on him, he’d only get more defensive. Instead, I hoped that the respect I had gained from him over the past week-and-a-half would give me enough leverage to at least get him to consider our words. In any case, I knew we needed to address things before we reached the crossroads. The zombies wouldn’t be deterred by the rocky terrain—slowed, perhaps, but undaunted in their pursuit. It was only delaying the inevitable, a delay which none of us could really afford.

About midday, I approached him. I reminded him of all we’d been through, and of our agreement to protect him, and told him that in order to do so, he’d need to tell us more. “No questions asked” was no longer sustainable. Stubbornly, he refused to listen to reason, so Norrund joined me and, rather bluntly, revealed our hand—we knew he’d been stealing souls, and that it was the reason for this pursuit. At this, Milo turned, if not hostile, hostile-adjacent. He stopped the cart, left the cart, and stood back a ways from us as he attempted to justify his actions. He scoffed at our claim they were souls, choosing to believe such a thing does not exist, and boasted of his right to own them. Ignorant fool, his nihilistic greed might well doom us all. The others may not have known the specific dangers of his actions, but had the sense to recognize their wrongness. Milo spoke of a red-clad woman, Zephora—the Red Witch he called her—and Finnian revealed he had spoken to her, claiming that the souls we carried were preventing her people from passing properly from this world. Milo scoffed at this, claiming her to be a war-hungry villain, recruiting people in some sort of crusade in pursuit of power. Regardless of his claims, we certainly were not in any position to defy such a power, so the four of us agreed that we would no longer allow Milo to take this cargo to the city. We would be leaving the souls here and taking the cart to the city, with or without Milo.

Finnian ordered Ursa to unload the chests from the cart, but when the automaton reached down to pick up the first chest, the halfling reached into his bag, which I then recognized as a bag of holding (!), and electricity shot from the chests into Ursa, causing him to collapse into unconsciousness. Milo then drew a small longsword and heavy crossbow from his bag, wielding one in each hand (!!) and stated, with the utmost confidence, that we would not be taking his cart. As we braced for battle, Norrund attempted one last desperate attempt at peaceably resolving the issue by magically Suggesting that Milo allow us to remove the cargo and then let us leave. Miraculously, it worked, although his wording missed one crucial detail—Milo let us unload the cart, then set off upon it alone—leaving us to finish the journey on foot.

Once he left, we attempted to explain to Finnian and Vodarr what had transpired, and then set to work hiding the chests. Magical suggestion only lasts for a matter of hours, and once it wore off, we could be certain that Milo would return to reclaim “his” treasure—and likely settle the score with us, as well. As Ursa was still unconscious, he could not help us move the chests. I was, similarly, rather useless in this form, so I volunteered to guard him while the others took the first chest. Vodarr mixed himself some sort of alchemical potion that increased his strength, allowing them to make quick time with the chest. While I waited, I inspected Ursa, and found a means with which to reboot him. When the others returned, we all left with the second chest—taking into the woods on the other side of the road, in a different direction from the first. I covered our trail as we went, until we found a suitable hiding spot. We then doubled back a ways, taking extra care to hide our tracks further, then set off down the road toward Waterdeep.

We traveled the rest of the day without incident. We kept to the trees, far enough off the road to, hopefully, not draw any attention from travelers, but not so deep as to lose the road entirely. We saw no one else, not even our former employer. As darkness fell, we set up camp and arranged watches. I told Norrund to wake me when he was ready to end his watch, but instead I woke to a commotion caused by Finnian, who was engaged with my own worst fears returned to life. A figure ever present in my mind since the appearance of the lady in red and her companions. A figure who was ended hundreds of years ago. A figure I’ve only ever known as a demon, born of desire and grief and the power of a dark god, in guise of a young girl called Selina. Her name on my tongue, unbidden, drawn out by shock, by the vain hope that I might be mistaken. She turned and locked eyes with me—no mistake then—but before she could strike, Norrund reached out to touch her leg, and they both were gone.

Supplimental: Unbeknownst to our narrator, during Vodarr’s watch, he was alerted to a noise in the woods. Not wanting to investigate alone, he woke Finnian and together they discovered it was caused by a rabbit caught in one of Finnian’s traps. Finnian decided, since he was up, he would relieve Norrund on watch and take the time to dress and season his catch.

When he finished, he noticed that Norrund was having fits in his sleep. He went to him to try and rouse him, only to have both of them suddenly appear in an unfamiliar foggy hill. Norrund ignored Finnian, believing him to be part of his dream. They discovered two gravestones along the path they walked, and, at the top of the hill, the remains of a burnt-down house. They poked around the house for a short time, until a shaking of debris caught their attention. They witnessed the rise of a young dark haired girl, clad in a white dress, who moved oddly, almost like a puppet without strings. They fled down the hill and she chased them, gaining every time they turned to look back. As she was just about to make contact, Norrund awoke, to discover the same figure standing over him.

A Brief Summary of Things Otherwise Hard to Read

On the morning of the tenth day of the journey to Waterdeep, the cart was set upon by a vast horde of walking dead, enough to tear down the cart itself. The half-orc, Dokken, challenged them alone, holding them off as the cart turned around and escaped, but was quickly overwhelmed. After a time, the cart set back upon its original path. The horde had dispersed, leaving behind only scraps of the party’s comrade. As the cart arrived in the small town of Valmire, where Finnian, Vodarr, and URSA were supposed to be obtaining a second cart, only Milo, Kestral and Norrund remained.

There was no sign of the rest of the party, save Ursa, who had regained consciousness and was vainly attempting to push himself upright, in spite of his broken arm. Norrund helped him to his feet, and Ursa gave what little information he could as to the exploits of the others. Norrund and Kestral went to investigate the barn where Finnian fell, while URSA and Milo guarded the cart. Kestral found a passageway into a series of underground tunnels. Norrund found a shovel.

The pair descended into the tunnel and began exploring. In the first room they found Finnian, chained to the wall, near death, with a glowing green orb embedded in his chest. Norrund attempted to heal him with a curing wand and, although it did not seem to work at first, Finnian somehow rallied and they unchained him. As Finnian attempted to regain his composure (and don his armor), Kestral explored the other rooms. He did encounter a body of undetermined condition in another room, but as soon as he was sure it was not their final missing party member, he left, without disturbing it.

The tunnel ended at a dead end—a pool of water, so the trio left the way they (or at least most of them) had come. Upon reaching the surface, they discussed what to do. Milo wanted to leave right away. Although there was an intact cart available, there were no animals to pull it. Norrund, however, refused to leave without Voldarr, as the elf was the closest thing he had to a friend on this journey. The group discussed investigating the tower where URSA said he had last been seen—along with a large number of zombies. Kestral volunteered to covertly investigate the area, as he wished to avoid any fights with the creatures, if possible. He fortunately did not run into any dead, walking or otherwise, but he did discover a grappling hook tied to a line leading out and behind the tower, along with the traces of two people leading away from town.

Norrund, Finnian, and Kestral followed the light trail left, they hoped, by Vodarr and possibly a survivor of the town. However, when they saw that the trail led across the river and into the woods beyond, they realized that they could not reasonably pursue them. Norrund proposed a method of getting them to pursue the group, instead, by having URSA sound his alarm signal as the cart traveled. Kestral and Milo objected strongly, as such a signal would also likely attract the attention of any creatures in the woods. The others were persistent, however, and so they reluctantly agreed to try. Milo spoke to Kestral about his concerns and the rogue pledged to him that his number one priority was the halfling and his cargo, even if it came at the expense of his allies. For if the cart fell, they would all be lost to the zombie horde.

The plan, it turned out, worked exactly as expected. Norrund and an injured female companion heard the sound and were able to rendezvous with the cart, as did a large number of zombies. A frantic battle broke out, in which URSA helped Vodarr get his new friend onto the cart, and Norrund helped hold off the advancing horde while Vodarr attempted to reach the cart. However, before he could do so, a new threat broke out from the trees, directly next to the cart—a much larger zombie, wielding a greataxe. Finnian prepared to defend the cart, but before he could even take position next to it, the hulking monster swung its axe down into the cart, cleaving the newcomer in twain and ripping a chunk out of the cart. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, Kestral prepared to order the cart forward, and shouted a word of warning to Vodarr, who had not yet reached the cart. With a final surge of speed, the elf managed to jump on as the cart took off down the road.

They drove as far as they could until the darkness of night and exhaustion set in. As the party prepared for the most stressful watch of their journey, they discussed the situation they found themselves in. Milo was clearly involved with everything that was happening here, although how directly and how knowingly was hard to say. They couldn’t keep pressing forward blindly. Too much had already been lost and it was only a matter of time until a situation arose that they could not escape. They agreed that, come morning, they would confront their employer with questions, and, hopefully, convince him to take action that would stop this madness once and for all.

In over my head...

Have you ever had a dream so unimaginably horrifying that it woke you up, but you didn’t stop dreaming? However, I don’t mean you awoke with a scream in your bed but that you became aware that you were dreaming out of sheer disbelief. Whatever happened or whatever you saw couldn’t possibly be real and you suddenly knew you had to wake up to make it stop. I ask if you’ve experienced this because I’ve been waiting to wake up from this nightmare for days now, and at this rate I’m worried I never will.

We’d just arrived in the town of Valamire. Vodarr, Ursa and I had come there seeking a means of transport as the party was down a wagon. What greeted us was empty homes, quiet streets, and a flaming pile of corpses. Trying our best to ignore the implications of this sign, we elected to get what we could and leave as quickly as possible. Vodarr and I skirted the town’s edge towards a barn, while Ursa patrolled the opposite side. We got to the barn, opened the door and the odor of death crashed over us like a wave. Vodarr couldn’t help but keel over, and I nearly did myself. There were more bodies in this place though not all human. Several livestock littered the ground like festering piles of meat. Still, amongst all the ruin there stood hope: a wagon. It looked to be in good condition, although I was unsure how we would attempt to move it with nothing to pull it. After making sure the dead stayed dead I made my way towards the wagon, and that’s when the darkness rushed up to greet me.

The next moments are all a blur: falling, drowning, a grip on my arm, gasping for breath, and then waking. It took me a moment to remember where I was, why I was damp and why I could barely breathe from the stench. As my brother used to say it would seem I was up the preverbal “shit creek” without a paddle. I can’t think of a more literal definition as I had fallen into the waste pit for the barn. What worried me more was that someone or something wanted me down there. Those hatches have to be manually opened and closed. It was no accident. I also became acutely aware of how dark it was. It was night. I had no idea how long I’d been down there but judging from the dull throb in the back of my head, it could have been hours or even days. What had become of the others? I wanted to call out but I had a feeling I wasn’t alone down there. I donned my shield and halberd (which I was pleasantly surprised hadn’t been lost in the fall) and started to move. I could barely see in that pit but I could make out a dim tunnel with three side doors and a main exit. It didn’t make sense, those passages. Storage in this area would be disastrous, and what other purpose could they serve? Most of me wanted to barrel towards the exit and start shouting for Vodarr or Ursa, but I couldn’t risk it. For all I knew they’d been ambushed too and might very well be beyond one of these doors. I carefully opened the first door. A rough, weak voice cried out. It was neither Vodarr nor Ursa, but a man named Jerrard. Upon closer inspection I found him to be human. He told me of the woman in red, how she came to this town seeking aid, and brought nothing but famine and pestilence with her. I tried to move him but he was in severe pain, though not from whatever illness had ravaged this town. He spoke of the sickness of mankind. He described the symptoms and told me how it felt. I didn’t-I couldn’t know, not now. I had never seen a case of it myself, only heard rumors first through Reiley and then basic training. I told him so and he called my family blessed, something I could never hope to do. I wanted to get him out, but he urged me to go find my friends. He had no idea how close I came to ending him as the judge’s words echoed in my mind. “They will only be a burden.”

I made for the next door and opened it, hoping to find nothing. Instead I found-even still I don’t know what I found. It was a small orb, crystal of some kind, and it glowed a soft, eerie green. I felt drawn to it and, against my better judgement, I placed a hand on it. Voices, whispers echoed in this small room. I looked but saw no one. As I feared, they emanated from the orb. I feared it might be the cause of this town’s sickness and needed to know more about it. Vodarr, Norand, Kestrel, someone would know. I wrapped it in some spare cloth and tucked it away. Finally I came to the third door. This room was pitch black and quiet, though I could just make out a large basin at the far end. It was filled with still, clear water. Honestly, I didn’t even hesitate. I needed to wash off the memories of the last few days, let alone hours spent in this pit. I splashed some water on my arms and face and scrubbed hard to forget the smell that seemed to permeate my armor now. Then I heard it. The door behind me slammed shut hard. I armed myself and turned to face the darkness. I saw nothing, but I clearly felt something. Something primal rose up and burned inside me, telling me to run. I turned around to see a grim figure rising from the water in the basin. Another undead, I hoped. This one was different. It carried a great axe with a purpose and water was gushing from its legs. I couldn’t run. If I turned to open the door it would split me from neck to navel. I remember getting a few good hits in, but after a trip attempt splashed through him like nothing, I lost my nerve to down the monster. My mind went to the gem. Doing my best to dodge the sickening, green tint of the axe, I rolled the gem onto the floor and brought my halberd down upon it. After the second hit it shattered and, much to my relief, the monster fell back to the pool and melted.

Not one to question good fortune, I made a break for the exit. What I saw was not a relief. The town was overrun and all the undead were fleeing. They were headed for the main road. The company had to be warned, but I couldn’t just abandon Vodarr and…URSA! He lay in the middle of the town square. I rushed to him but found him de-powered down. His arm was in shambles. I had to get him on the cart, but my earlier attempts to move it solo had failed miserably. So with as much strength as I could muster I began to drag him to the wagon. As I approached the open door, another sharp fear caused me to turn around. I’m ashamed to say I dropped Ursa out of shock. The little girls stood shadowed in the doorway, but their red eyes were all too clear. I picked Ursa back up and began to frantically back away, when she emerged from the blackness. The woman in red, crimson as blood on white cloth, gazed into me..I don’t know any other way to describe it. I was done. I don’t know how I knew it or why, but even as I scrambled with my companion in tow, I was a dead man. But, if I was to die, I would know why and who would put me in the ground. I layed Ursa down and walked towards them with fake confidence, unsure of who I was or what I was doing. I put on my best soldier voice and asked the woman her purpose. She spoke of helping her people, of them being unable to find the afterlife, and of my ignorance. I knew too little to contradict her and too little still to comprehend what she could possibly mean by all this. She seemed almost more disappointed than angry, like a mother upset at stupid child. With utter distaste on her face, she turned towards the barn, and with a flick of her wrist the two little girls bolted after me. I made one last feeble attempt to offer my services in some vein hope of stopping her, but she didn’t falter and neither did the girls. I reached for my halberd but as they neared me all I could see were the twins, Ciara and Claire, and I knew I couldn’t kill them. I remember trying to run, and then nothing.

They tortured me, for how long I’m not sure. I remember a leeching pain and something like my heart trying to burst out of my chest. I remember the woman in red. She was furious about the stone as she seemed to treasure them. I think she pitied me, although her actions didn’t show it. I remember little but sickening pain, and then blackness. I awoke to Norrund and Kestrel. I wanted to tell them to run. I wanted to tell them to find Vodarr and Ursa and leave me here but I was broken. As I felt the last of my strength waning, I begged Norrund to return my shield to Ma. I begged him to find Reiley. Impossible tasks, an unimaginable burden, but I didn’t care. I regret asking so much of him, but it was all I could think to say as the light faded. The last image I saw was Norrund brandishing a ray of light that was swiftly swallowed up by the darkness. I was brought back to the feeling after I fell into the pit: drowning. I could only think of my family, and all I haven’t done as I accepted what I knew had finally found me: death. The grip took hold of me, and again I broke the surface. I awoke again, suddenly, gasping for breath and so very afraid I would drift between the limbo of the living and the dead forever, when I saw Norrund still brandishing his light. As he did I felt my pain recede, though there’s an ache in my chest I cannot place.

mo' zombies mo' problems

Time runs short.
In an effort to save time for our group I may have lost it all for myself and Finnian.

We had arrived at the nearest town to look for a horse and cart to bring back to expedite our journey and what we found was quite unsettling. Dead corpses of more undead and possibly regular dead were dead in a dead pile of deadness. Nothing seemed to be moving in the whole of the little town.

But we had a task at hand and set about to find something of use to us. A large barn looked to be a promising target, so Finnian and I set about to investigate while URSA scouted quickly around the other side of town.

When we opened the doors to the barn an unearthly stench assaulted our nostrils. The overpowering smell of dead animals and people until now concentrated in one building was so strong I needed to compose myself. Finnian seemed to handle it better and went forward to investigate.
We could see at the back of the barn, past the bodies of humans and horses and livestock, a cart that looked in fine condition. As Finnian passed one of the bodies in the middle of the floor he stabbed at it to make sure it was dead and also not a kind of dead that would attempt to make us as such. It remained motionless in its gruesome silence and Finnian pressed on.

As he moved forward, suddenly the floor underneath him gave way and he disappeared from view. I rushed into the building just as the rancid scent rushed back at me and I lost my composure among other things I had every intention of keeping. I then pressed on to the place Finnian had disappeared at and found a metal door that must have been used to dispose of the refuse that a barn of this sort would generate. I attempted to open it myself and with a shovel nearby but it was stuck and I would need more time to get it open.

Unfortunately this was when my time started to shorten. The other less than dead body on the floor that wasn’t stabbed had risen to come running at me. I barely avoided the first blow and tried to get farther away and fire some arrows into it from my bow. I hit it a few times while trying to get out of range, but soon another rose (or fell rather, from the upper level) to attack me as well. I made my way to the door and left the barn trying to stop or slow the zombies advance with my arrows.
Now outside URSA had arrived to attempt to help, but his lack of combat training and poor luck left him mostly useless. The zombies seemed to hardly notice the mechanized contraption however.
As I tried to keep my distance from the creatures, more seemed to come from everywhere around town, suddenly aware of my presence. To help stay out of reach I ingested one of my concoctions of expedious speed and also one to help heal some of my wounds.
As I circled about out of reach but making zero or less progress in thinning their numbers a voice called out to me and beckoned me into a building attached to the dilapidated stone tower. I thankfully obliged to join another human of sane mind and body in the potential safety of the building.

Inside and door shut, Ashera introduced herself. She was a fine elf woman who looked (and later confirmed) like she had been stuck in this place for a while with meager supplies. She had lost her husband to the undead and was both hoping to find a cure or some way to stop this madness while she remained in the only place she knew. When I told her of the fate of my friend Finnian, her words gave me little comfort for his safety, but also a finality of the fact that there was nothing I could do for him at the time.
I went up to what remained of the tower and scouted around and saw URSA apparently damaged and incapable of righting himself. The undead seemed to still ignore him. I wanted to contact him to tell him where I was and to possibly enable him to procure some sort of help. But as I finally spoke loud enough to get his attention I realized there wasn’t much he could do at the time and I only served to alert the shambling horde of our location more. With the doors as barricaded as they were and the renewed vigor of the horde, it was only a matter of time, short time, until they busted in.
In order to escape we planned to rappel down the side of the tower and escape out of the town. Unfortunately my rope and grappling hook served us little use as we both failed to keep a steady grip on it and both fell most of the way down.
On the bright side, I managed to remain conscious and was able to carry Ashera with her now broken leg with ease with the help of one of my elixers.
We escaped out into the forest and accross the river/stream as night had fallen. I would have liked to go to where Ashera said the place Finnian had fallen into would lead out, but we were too weak and the night too dangerous for us to go all that way around town and hid while I intended to make a splint for her leg.
Before I could however a large undead with a large axe crossed the river and was obviously looking for us. Luckily he didn’t seem to see us and retreated into the river.
Yes into the river. He seemed to almost melt into the water or else enter some stairway under the water and disappear completely in what seemed to be quite shallow water. A most interesting specimen but not one I have time to ponder now.

As we lay here trying to recover our strength and heal our wounds, Ashera asks if I could do anything to calm her nerves and relax her and I think I could use some comforting thoughts as well. She reminds me of my sister Marie, and although I remember her in some way every day, it’s been so long since I had last seen my dear sister that she had become more of an idea or a concept to me and not as the complete person that she was. As I told Ashera a few stories of my sister I thought of them almost as if for the first time. The cheerful memories I had repressed after they became cold reminders of her passing came to mind in almost a new light after so long without pondering them.

I didn’t have or take enough time then and I may be short on time now, but I’ll just have to find a way to make more time for myself and for whatever else I need to do.

Eventually Ashera slept and later I did as well. Hopefully when I awake I will have the time and capabilities to do what I need to do.

As history continues to plagiarize itself

This trip does nothing but affirm the old wisdom about deals that seem too good to be true. In the past couple days I’ve nearly lost this weak body to living corpses, one of our carts has been damaged beyond our means to repair it, the horse pulling it mortally wounded, and our ranks have fallen by more than half. And worse still, it feels as though my own past has been dogging us—a fact which all but ensures further horrors to come.

The morning following the attack I was sore, both physically and otherwise, but despite a heavy fog, I nearly let myself believe things were looking up. Finnian had defended us ably, and, although I completely failed to give him the support I should have, we worked together well enough. As the dwarf, Norrund, played lute, and the elf, Vodarr, attempted to entertain us with his “hand experience”, it almost felt like the early days, with Thorman and Hubert and Kitty, too many lifetimes ago. Undead are a bit more ominous than mere bandits, perhaps, but at least no carts were set ablaze.

During a break in our travels, Milo called out to our group, asking who the leader was. I volunteered myself, without hesitation, as the only one of the group with any real experience in these things. I was joined by the leader of the half-orc crew, a particularly tough looking male named Dokken. He informed us that one of the chests in our cart had been tampered with, and that a single piece of the cargo was missing—from the other chest. He couldn’t say when it happened, as this was his first inspection since the previous morning—in his haste to press forward, spurred by the attack on the road, he had become lax in his inspections. He gave us an ultimatum—find who stole the treasure, a small, smooth stone with a natural glow, and return it, or else no one gets paid. He gave us his word that, if the thief came forward, he or she would merely be dismissed without pay. But if he discovered the thief himself, he would kill them personally. Dokken and I agreed the terms were fair and set off to our separate investigations. I wish I could say I knew my companions well enough that they were above suspicion. Still, secrets are difficult to keep on a journey such as this, so I had little doubt things would resolve themselves. All in all, still quite the minor crisis, by my standards.

Then we hit the trap and it began to become apparent just how little my life has changed.

We had pushed on past dusk—I had suggested we stop to make camp as, between the fog and tree cover, it was nearly impossible to see anything, but the others were afraid of more walking dead and wished to continue as far as possible before stopping. As such, we stood no chance of seeing the rut in the road when we hit it. It was clearly placed there intentionally—the perfect size and depth to cripple a cart, and it worked perfectly, destroying the rear wheel at the axel. Milo had no spare, so, lacking other options, we loaded everything into the single intact cart while Finnian, Vodarr, and Dokken headed off into the woods to track down the loosed horse. We had finished loading everything and were standing guard, wary of ambush, awaiting their return, when we saw them. Norrund was the first, his eyes being accustomed to the dark in a way I could so very recently relate to. All I could see were two pairs of glowing eyes—ominous enough by themselves—but what truly chilled my blood was what Norrund said they were attached to, a pair of ghostly figures—young girls—accompanied by a third, a “grown” woman, in the middle. When he returned, Finnian corroborated this story, claiming to have seen them in the woods the night before, after the attack. They made no move toward us, and as the search party arrived, they retreated back into the trees.

That night I slept ill—too many thoughts stuck in my mind. What significance do these girls play. They’re clearly pursuing us, but have made no move against us as of yet. Is this merely their domain we travel through, or is it something about us that draws them? Our cargo? The book of Nerull? Or might it be me they seek? And what do they signify? Are they connected to the undead we have seen? Could this be the doing of Nerull? Or perhaps Doran himself has returned once again. I shudder to think what he could do if he allied with a fully risen god from the beginning. All questions I cannot answer now, and yet I cannot rid myself of them.

When day finally broke, we made our plans for going forward. A small contingent would walk at speed to the nearest town—hopefully not more than a day’s journey away—and try to procure us a new cart. Meanwhile the rest of us would attempt to move forward on foot, with our cargo on the remaining cart, and meet them on their way back. Norrund had bullheadedly decided to take the entire night’s watch and was completely passed out, so we loaded him on the cart as well. Weighing as little as I do, I opted to ride as well, citing that I would only slow our progress on foot. I did, however, have the ulterior motive of looking for Milo’s missing stone. I tried to suggest that the orcs head to town, providing me with ample opportunity to pursue my investigation, but Finnian was dead-set on going, and he took Vodarr and Ursa with him, leaving only Norrund for me to investigate.

My search of Norrund’s gear turned up nothing of note, so, once he awoke, I chose to confide in him what had happened, and what was at stake. His words did nothing to convince me of his innocence, but they also failed to betray any guilt. Still, he doesn’t seem the type to value riches over his own life, so I hoped that, if he were indeed the culprit, Milo’s warning would at least spur him to replace it at his first opportunity. But it would turn out I needn’t have worried. Shortly after our conversation, we ran across a traveler in the road—the first other living soul we’d seen in nearly a week. He looked quite harried and had nothing but ill to say of the road ahead. We, in turn, left him with warnings of the dangers behind us and we both set off to our own individual dooms.

Later in that day, the two orcs at our rear, Talwe and Baron, caught up to us and asked to switch places. We had been making good time, under the circumstances, and, although I knew it would slow us down, it does us no good to have worn out guards, so Norrund and I agreed. Our two groups had, to this point, kept to ourselves, but in this brief exchange, I felt some small sense of camaraderie with them. Had we been introduced properly from the start, I would at this point have known them for almost as long as the others. I decided that it was perhaps time to start bridging that gap—the way this journey was turning out, it would be better to be able to function as a single unit when necessary.

With Norrund and I guarding the rear, our pace was, indeed, slowed, but it was not a complete setback. After all, if the roads ahead were as bad as the man we met had said, we had no reason to hurry, as our advance party would no doubt be delayed. And, indeed, it didn’t take long for those premonitions to be justified, as shortly after our swap, Dokken came running back to us, shouting for us to get off the road. We do so, just in time for a large shadow to darken the skies in front of us—the unmistakable silhouette of a dragon. Milo expressed shock, stating that the last dragon he has personally known of in this world was nearly a century ago. We all watched it pass over us in awe. Even in Dracos back in the day, where such creatures were more common than not, they have always had a formidable presence—I can only imagine how striking seeing what might be the only one in your lifetime must be.

A while later, some odd behavior within the cart caught Norrund and my attention. The orcs were conversing in their native tongue, when suddenly the male, Baron, muttered something in common, then ducked down out of site. And when he popped back up, he was holding something in his hand. As I crept up to the back of the cart, to get a better vantage, I could clearly see it was a small, unusually smooth stone, about the size of a walnut. In the light of day it was hard to say, but I could have almost sworn it was glowing. They argued about it for a bit, with Talwe wanting him to leave it where it was, but Baron insisted that, having found it, it was his to keep, and he chose to pocket it.

Norrund agreed with me, it seemed likely to be Milo’s missing treasure, although what it was doing at the bottom of the cart, neither of us could say. Norrund proposed the idea of telling them that we saw it, of trying to convince them to bring it to Milo. I felt this was a bad idea, as Baron clearly wasn’t interested in giving it up, and, as they were Dokken’s men (so to speak), I felt it best to leave them to him. So when we rendezvoused to make camp that night, I told him what we saw, and what my suspicions were. I was clear that they found it and did not seem to know what they had, and that I wasn’t looking to cause any trouble for anyone, merely hoping to secure our payment for this job.

Dokken had words with the two of them for, what seems like longer than it should have taken, then came back to me, asking if I was sure of what I saw and if I was certain it was what Milo was missing. I affirmed I was confident in my report, as best as I could be with the information available. Without another word, Dokken returned to his companions and, with notable swiftness, cut them both down where they stood. He then reached into Baron’s pocket and retrieved the stone, which now in the darkness was very visibly glowing, and handed it to Milo, who silently acknowledged it as his missing cargo. The orc then marched off a way down the road to patrol.

Norrund seemed visibly disturbed by what went down, so I gave him a moment to process it, before enlisting his help in moving the bodies. I didn’t want them attracting predators to our camp. Or reanimating in the middle of the night around us, although I felt it best to not mention that possibility at that moment. We drug them to the other side of the road, a small distance into the trees and Norrund took a moment to… mourn, I guess. I tried to reassure him by telling him that this sort of thing never gets easier. A part of me wishes that were true. As we turned to leave, they appeared again, the girls. Seeing them then, for the first time, I was reminded more than ever of Selena. But unlike her, they made no move toward us, instead they merely stared, with those glowing eyes, and eventually faded back into the trees. They seem to appear whenever we encounter the dead, for whatever that is worth.

We returned to camp and Milo confirmed for me his cargo was once again all accounted for and we were square. Although the questions in my mind were as loud as ever, exhaustion from the road was able to overtake them quickly and I fell easily to sleep. Still, they were lurking just under the surface and, when Dokken woke me for watch, I quickly fell back into them, and to dwelling on the eerie similarities to those times, hundreds of years ago for this world, but mere decades for me. Disaster on the road, pursued spectral girls, an abundance of unnatural dead, and preoccupation with the book of a fell god. Am I cursed to live the same story endlessly? Perhaps I was mistaken—this might be Hell I returned to after all.

Subtitle Edition

More questions today. More trouble in our path.

After we camped at night as far from the zombie attack as we could get, we headed off on the trail again.
It was foggy and the trees were very unusual. The branches in the sky reminded me of hands reaching toward the sky in vain. Also of unusual note was the fact that it seemed like as we went that the entire grove of trees was dead. No leaves. It all seemed to be fairly recent as well. It would be most unnatural for such a large amount of trees to be simultaneously killed off in such a large area and so completely. A contaminated water supply? Possibly. Some other unusual force of nature I would assume. My inquiries of any such unusual behavior got replies of no known disturbances. So strange.
It was very foggy. We could hardly see the road. As it grew darker with the tree canopy and all the fog, we debated on wether we should stop or press on. Apparrently the correct answer would have been to stop sooner.
In the road a section of it had been dug away and our lead wagon got stuck in it and broke a wheel. The horse, now freed and frightened ran off into the woods. Now stranded in what by all means appeared to be a trap, we moved quickly to come up with a plan to continue out of the target zone.
We determined that if enough of us walked we could cram the luggage onto the still functioning cart, but only barely. Everything moved pretty quickly and I saw Milo, the caravan leader, talking with others about something and seemed upset, but I didn’t catch about what.
Finnian, one of the (half?)/orcs headed off into the woods to look for the horse that had run off because we could hear it out there somewhere. Tensions were high as we were pretty sure that we were about to be attacked by someone or something at any moment. With the orcs superior nightvision we were able to find the horse.
What we found was not pretty. It had been attacked by some thing or things and was lying in much pain. Finnian moved towards it, comforted it slightly, and then put it out of its misery with a stab to the heart. I was planning to do the same, but as usual Finnian took the initiative and did it quickly while I watched for what had attacked the horse to attack us. Fortunately it did not.
As we followed a trail Finnian had left back to the wagons, there seemed to be some trouble ahead as we came into view. Everyone was on edge and apparently seeing another pair of ghostly figures with glowing eyes.
One thing other thing that was unsettling at this point was that we also heard a horse whinny in the distance much like before. The horse we had found was most definitely finished off, so what did this mean? Was it another horse? Were we wrong and it wasn’t quite dead? Or was it revived in the same way as these people had been turned into zombies? If so who would do such a thing? what would be the point of reviving a horse? Does it just happen around here in this unusual forest? I would not mind getting to safety before finding out.
I think Finnian mentioned seeing them before and was likely what unsettled him after the zombie ordeal. I didn’t see them myself but everyone is extremely on edge.
After we got everything loaded up, we headed out as far as we were willing to go to get away from the past ordeal, and eventually made camp again.
While I tried to sleep for first watch I had a very unusual dream. Or was it a dream? I couldn’t fall asleep and thoughts were racing through my head. Then it felt like I could not move from my bed. I felt like I was dead. As I looked up past the fog and the trees as much as I could, I contemplated life and what it would mean to die. I determined I would very much not like to die, at least not until I have accomplished something great and beautiful. Old memories that I hadn’t thought of for a long time bubbled to the surface of my mind. I must continue this journey.
In the morning we determined that heading on foot the entire way would be a problem and decided that a few of us would head out faster to see if we could procure a second cart to get us back moving at full speed. Finnian, URSA and I moved out for this task.
Along the way we met an old man headed the opposite direction in a raggedy old cart. We asked if we could borrow the cart for our task and of course pay for his services, but he seemed to be somberly on his way. He wasn’t headed anywhere in particular it seemed, but just away from the town he left. From the conversation and a glance in his cart, it looked like he had lost his family and was taking them away to bury them. An unfortunate task, but one that we did not see fit to deprive him of and we continued on.

We finally approached the town sometime later. From a distance the town seemed very still and as some might say, dead and when we got farther into the silent town, we found that to be more true than we expected…

(ominous pause)

Then we found a pile of dead bodies burning as we had the zombies on the road.

or How I Woke Up and Started Fearing the Party

I wake up in a cargo hold. A ship? I’m unsure. It’s quiet here. I head out to the hallway. Long, empty, dark. Few torches line the walls. I take two as I’m wearing nothing but my night clothes.

I snake through the corridors. Pipes run along the walls. Dead elves scattered about. Who are they. How did I get here. Where is here. Questions race through my mind.

A door. I knock. A voice responds. Finnian. The human? He calls out, but not for me. I knock again. Silence. One more knock. I hear the door behind me creak open. Metal grinding on metal.

I awake. Again.

Back in the safe house. I hear wood clatter to the floor. The room is bright. Morning? I look out the window. Darkness. I sit up. On the floor sits two torches.

Impossible.

The rest of the night is sleepless. I sit and stare at the floor.

Dawn comes eventually.

Finnian was the first to come down. He snaps me out of my trance before going outside. I become aware enough to realize I may just be hallucinating the torches. Sleep deprivation. Who knows.

I bend down to take one, for the briefest moment I feel it in my hand before it fades and disappears.

Stunned.

Kestral joins me in the room. I asked him to call for the only person in our unwilling band of brothers that I think I can trust – Vodarr. When they both arrived downstairs I have been confirmed that what I’m seeing is actually there. The torch for meeting is real.

I tell the tale of my dream. The gnome takes the torch. It, too, disappears.

He makes a remark. Seems uneasy. Too eager to leave after this incident.

We’ve been here a few days. Finally setting out.

I’m thankful for this. No longer feels a safe house to me.

We’re to accompany a caravan south. Another city on the way to where we should have been already.

The human was very eager. Ready to go. Too ready. After last night, he makes me uneasy.

The leader of the caravan introduced himself. He also introduced the three half-orcs we’d be traveling with. They seemed near civilized.

He had little to say about our trip. Guard the caravan – it contains our pay. Don’t touch anything. Don’t trust anyone else – not even the other mercenaries.

We set off. The first few days were uneventful. Vodarr, making elixirs of sort. I, tinkering and adjusting my tools. Conversation was lacking, but more than nonexistent. I grow tired of Fnnian’s ignorance of the world.

On the third day – in a narrow path through a stand of trees – we saw a man in the distance. Standing in the road. Unmoving.

Our walking shield and the disoriented gnome took the mech and went up to investigate. Vodarr and I hung back… with the cargo. To watch the Orcs, Mostly.

Suddenly, an alarm. The robot. Charging at us. Incredible speed. Everyone distracted. The man had attacked. More were pouring from the woods as Vodarr and I made our way forward.

By the time we were not even halfway there, they lay in ruin. Slaughtered. Our men – nary a scratch.

The undead.

That’s what they encountered. Some dark necromancer is lurking around. Shambling corpses. Could be anywhere. We will need to keep more vigilant.

We set back out, making camp comfortably far from where we had our run in with the walking dead.

New era, same old shit

My first day back on Terra was pretty much a wash. This new body is strange—just similar enough to what I’m familiar with that all the tiny little differences are readily apparent. Even the most simple of reflexes require my direct attention—and skills that had become as natural to me as breathing are now frustratingly beyond my reach altogether. And as irksome as these physical issues are, perhaps worse is the social one. This body’s former owner had friends—so far only the three I rescued in the caves, but who knows what other friends and relatives could be out there. The three of them are having enough trouble understanding what happened, having witnessed it firsthand, I can’t possibly explain this to a family. My focus has to be on the mission—every day is more time for him to gather power and set plans into motion.

But, before I can do anything, I have to get my bearings. Figure out where I am, what this world has become. There’s something about this world—it’s restless in a way I’ve never seen anywhere else. Every time you leave, it sets out changing things. And, more immediately, I need money. Clearly if this gnome had anything on him, it was lost, either in the shipwreck or his subsequent capture. Without a copper to either of our names, I can hardly expect to accomplish much. Fortunately the local military appears to have been mobilized to help rescue us—granting me free passage to the nearby town of Shadowdale. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s a start.

And I have luck on my side, although I’ve yet to determine if it’s good or ill. One of the trio, the human, is a member of the military, and was granted private lodgings away from the other refugees, a privilege he chose to share with the others, myself included. I hadn’t planned on maintaining contact with these people—they seem ill-equipped to deal with what’s coming, and it seems cruel to continue exposing them to the living corpse of their ally—and yet they persist in their friendliness, offering not only seclusion, but the chance to learn a bit of what is new in the world. Perhaps sparing them from the coming conflict is not a choice that belongs to me, perhaps their fate was sealed when they witnessed a god renewed.

The second day was only marginally more productive than the first, but it was a solid step. The morning began with the disappointing realization that the military’s safehouse was as livable as the military itself. No food, no clothing, nothing beyond the most basic furniture. Such is my life, that even a single meal and a clean pair of clothes is too much to hope for. I had just set my mind toward procuring breakfast when a commotion broke out on the street—a robbery from the sounds of it. As if on cue, soldier boy, who had introduced himself as Finnian, leapt into action, bolting out into the street to pursue. The dwarf, Norrund, ran after him to watch. Why is always my lot in life to fall in with the petty hero types; what sin did I commit to deserve this? Of course, I know what it is—it’s the one I’ve yet to give up.

They returned in time, apparently victorious, and, surprisingly enough, with something to show for it—an invitation to dinner from the former victim. Over breakfast we discussed our plans. Norrund and Vodarr were independently bound for Waterdeep, and Finnian was going to accompany him while waiting for orders. It seemed as good a place as any for me to begin, so I agreed to accompany them as well. Once there I can hopefully find a lead, although I haven’t the slightest idea how to begin looking. In the time before evening we all attended business of our own. What the others did does not concern me, but, for myself, I made several gold doing odd jobs (following a generous loan from Vodarr), updated my wardrobe, and cleaned myself. I’ve done a lot of distasteful things in my time, but cleaning a strange body has to be among the most unpleasant. The less time I have to dwell on this predicament of mine, the better.

When evening arrived, we met at the safehouse, then traveled together to meet our host, who turned out to be an especially odd old gnome who called himself Tungsten. It was an opportunity to learn a bit of my new companions, and of Terra itself. Finnian, it seems, has strong ties to his family, a strong sense of moral obligation, and is quite disciplined. I suppose he might remind me of myself in many ways, had things not all gone to Hell. In addition, I’ve noticed that people in general seem to regard Finnian somewhat usually. I wonder if there’s some stigma associated with his military organization. Norrin is a tradesman who gets quite passionate about his interests and seems to have an unusually vast degree of knowledge about the world. Vodar is a scholar of some sort and, while he didn’t tell us terribly much of him, he certainly had a lot of questions. Truth be told, I found him a bit nosy. For my part, I introduced myself as a bookish historian. It seemed like a decent enough cover, explaining both my esoteric knowledge of the past and complete lack of knowledge of the present.

Tungsten, meanwhile, was a mechanist, an inventor, who had built, among other things, an automaton. I’ve had some experience with such things before but what he showed us was not what I expected. His creation, who asked us to call him URSA, while still obviously manufactured, was much more humanlike in appearance than the constructs of 800 years ago. Apparently he functions much like humans as well, even to the point of requiring sleep at night, which to me, seems to defeat the purpose of creating such a thing to begin with. In any case, it was because of URSA that he invited us here. Apparently Vodarr mentioned his travel plans, and Tungsten would like us to take URSA with us, as a field test of his capabilities. The others seem quite willing and, while I’ll admit to having my doubts about such advanced and… untested technology, I am rather intrigued by him as well.

After eating and conversing long enough to be polite, I excused myself, wanting to visit some local shops before they closed. If we are to be traveling in the morning, I need to be prepared, and I would much prefer to have provisions than gold with me on the road anyhow. I do not know how long the others remained—after making my purchases I returned home to further pore my one and only lead—that accursed tome from the temple—but I fear I won’t find any answers tonight, as even now I find myself drifting off. I’d best rest up now while I can—things have just barely begun.

I had hoped for more from the outside world than this. I guess I had convinced myself that Reiley was wrong and most of what I heard of Lilinith’ri or the Tera beyond it was a fairy tale. My delusion was able to last through basic training but now, here, on blood stained sand after watching hundreds of people drowned or shot and seeing horrors I still can’t believe, I’m fully aware of how little I know.
The Lilinith’rin guard were here. I should have felt relieved, even welcomed, but I only felt like a child who wants to help carry something they could never hope to lift. A judge was here. A judge. Of all the bedtime stories I never thought would prove true, this one beats the rest. He wore the Lilinith’rin red, reflected by his majestic armor. The stories did him little justice. After speaking with him I couldn’t tell if I was a mere annoyance or a curiosity, and I was unsure which I would prefer. The guard started distributing food and medical care, to most. The four humans that survived the attack, including the boy I got off the ship, all were left alone. Ignored, would be the more proper statement. After getting my back flayed open by whatever we found down in the depths of this place, I knew I had an obvious need for some help. I gathered what provisions I could and gave them to my people. My people. Another thing I can hardly believe I needed to say. The captain of the guard informed me that the slaves aboard the ship had been owned by two half-orcs currently making their way northward. I quickly found out that was all the help he had to offer. I wanted to follow them. I wanted to track them down and make them talk. I knew they’d have a manifest, a list of their “cargo.” I didn’t see Reiley among the bodies but there were too many for me to check. I needed to be sure. One of the survivors said he would come. They were the only ones who would care. Before I left I informed Vodarr of my plan. I couldn’t ask any who I met aboard that boat to come. They’d been through enough and needed no more torture on my account.
I saw the guard draw their swords as I started to return to the cave. I saw the terrified look on the boy’s face. I saw a flash of steel and heard nothing: no cries of protest, no pleas for mercy. It was as if the guard had simply been ordered to put some crippled cattle out of their misery and the cattle had knowingly submitted. I had been told of other survivors they had encountered on route here. Now I knew their fate. There was nothing I could have done. Protest my country? Defy a judge? I’m not that stupid. That’s what I keep telling myself at any rate. That’s how I sleep at night.
When I asked the judge why he calmly said it was for the good of the country. Those people would have been a burden on society. They would have contributed nothing. Maybe he was right but that doesn’t mean they didn’t deserve the chance to prove him wrong. Before I was able to make my way, the judge ordered me into his private carriage. I was to go to Shadowdale with the others. I could be leaving Reiley behind, one of the only thoughts that almost had me screaming at the judge for being so impassive, but I knew there was no arguing my point. Until I had his level of power and influence, I would only be a pawn. I sat in furious silence the entire ride. Upon arriving I was told where I would be staying. Good thing I’m used to taking orders by now. It was a dusty, unused safe house. Nicer than what I was used to honestly. My thoughts went to the Vodarr, Norrund and Chadwick. I had past where the refugees would be staying on my way here and I figured they might appreciate some nicer accommodations. After a quick visit, they all found their way here. I offered up the only bed, as I have trouble sleeping in one anymore. We didn’t speak of much for which I was grateful but I was more thankful for being with a group who didn’t stare at me like an animal in an exhibit.
Tomorrow I make for Waterdeep. That was where I was called to upon seeing the vessel safely through. Now that that is moot point it seems the only option. I hope these few will join me. Few strangers would have stood by me and helped in such perilous circumstances as we’d seen today. I think that speaks for itself. Regardless of who they are or where they come from, they’ve earned my respect. We shall see what tomorrow brings. May the winds bring favor to Ma and the twins and shield them from harm.

...the hell!?

Things are worse than I could ever have hoped. I had expected him to be waiting for me, but I didn’t think he would be so prepared. I should have suspected when I saw his servant, the osyluth, but I was thrown by the children. Once again, my weakness for others was my undoing. I should have known when we found his temple. That book of his taunted me with its promise of answers, but I didn’t dare touch it. I was afraid to get close to anything of his, and yet I barely hesitated from walking right into his final solution. I should have turned around right then and there. I should have left those kids to die.

Now the god of death is risen in full, in a world ill-equipped to handle him. The last god who awoke on Terra very nearly conquered it. I’m sure the final one believes there is no one who can stop him now. But if so, he is mistaken. Because he left me alive. And he has something that belongs to me. And I will see it burn before I allow him to claim it in full.

Return to the Tragedy

Year 2429 – Saranday, September 20 – The Ritual of Judges

A cliff side glows orange as the setting sun hits it, shining brightly on a colossal mark that appears to have been etched into the cliff wall. The mark appears to be a word written in ancient draconic tongue and has never been deciphered. At the edge of the cliff stands a human male with brown hair and a goatee, about 40 years of age, regal with his golden ceremonial robes.

Five soldiers clad in large, elaborate silver armor, Judges of Terra, march up to the man on the cliff, passing an old monument without care of it. Each step is in sync with one another, the armor making little noise as they approach the man. Behind them, the city seems empty. And once the five reach the man, they kneel before him.

“Osylith, do you believe in the afterlife?” His gruff voice speaks with understanding and confidence. The man clearly asks the question not looking for an answer.

One of the soldiers responds. “My Sovereign, over half a century ago a god appeared on our world and then vanished. He hasn’t been seen since. I most certainly believe in the afterlife.”

“I am not your Sovereign,” the man replies with regret, “but we will march together in heaven.” He takes out an old, rusted dagger presses it to the neck of the soldier who had spoke. “In heaven…” Blood spills out from the neck onto the dry rock below them.

One by one, he takes the dagger to their throats and cuts. Five bodies now lay before him, blood pooling underneath him and running off the cliff face down to the glyph. He closes his eyes to stop the tears from running down his cheek. “In heaven.”

Year 2440 – Winesday, April 27 – Norrund’s Dream

Norrund Isanæ wakes in a cold cabin. There isn’t much in here: an empty table, chairs, no fireplace or kitchen. There’s a ladder that leads to a walled-in loft with a door covered in old fabric. Outside is snow and lots of it. Fir trees line a path to the town that leads up a hill. It’s a quiet night with even more snow softly falling to the ground.

This certainly isn’t the ship the dwarf has been sailing on for the past two days.

“Hello there! Who might you—OH!! What have we here!?” delights a human peeking his head out from the fabric above. He grabs the ladder and slides down. His features are a sharp contrast to his tousled brown hair, and his face lights up with expressiveness when he approaches the bearded dwarf. “You’re unique, aren’t you?”

Norrund stares quizzically at the man, not responding. Before either can get a word in, Norrund blinks and finds himself lying in his hammock, warm with sweat dripping from his brow and into his beard. The tinge of saltwater hits his eyes as he blinks them awake. It all must have been a dream. A splash of water on the face and an early stretch should shake the feeling.

But that dream seemed very real…

Year Unknown – Running Out of Options

“You’re running out of options,” says the githzerai, Muu’var to Kestral. Muu’var has served as an advisor since Kestral abandoned the Material Plane upon it being locked away from Planar Travel. He would never take on communicating with a lowly human being, at least not normally, for those of the Astral Plane walk with the dead gods and are far superior to any other race. But his relationship with Kestral was built out of desperation, and now he needs to make sure that the remaining god does not awaken.

Kestral is the host to the remaining god, and with Muu’var’s help the two are looking for a way to prevent his return. But they’ve expended most options.

“There is one remaining lead, but you won’t like it.” Muu’var’s hesitation is clear; this isn’t a plan he wants to pursue. “Travel to the first level of Hell. By going to his home you may find something.”

Kestral had no argument. It was a place he never wanted to return to, but it had been a few years without any other leads. And with much hesitation, he prepared to journey back to hell.

Year 2440 – Winesday, April 27 – A Party’s Party

Vodarr Tallus’s sea sickness finally abated. Could the five day oceanic journey finally be looking up for the elf? He hoped so. Anything would be better than being holed away in the cabin patiently trying to ignore the rocking of the waves. He gingerly gathered his things and took to the main deck to feel the breeze on his face. This was the first time he really got to take a look at any of the crew and passengers on this ship aside from boarding, and then he was too worried about the possibility of getting seasick.

The ship was a large cargo vessel sailing from Torin to Lilinith’ri. Vodarr found his way on to pursue his studies in a land he had not yet visited. It helped that he didn’t have much tying him to a specific place, which seemed to be the case for many of the other passengers and crew members. Up on deck, Vodarr caught the attention of a gnome scientist who introduced himself as Chadwick Songbreeze with an iguana companion Lazlo. The two seemed to make quick friends after the two realized a shared passion, and thus they planned to have drinks in the evening below deck.

Vodarr and Chadwick enjoyed each other’s company at dinner rather well. Both were so used to the lonely journey filled with solitary meals in their cabins. After their meal, Chadwick requested that they find a couple more people for their drink-filled party. Chadwick would seek out the company of the only human on-board, a young guard that had been stationed on deck throughout the trip. Vodarr would ask a dwarf who isolated himself from others to focus on his trinkets. Niether Chadwick or Vodarr were very persuasive in their invitations, but both of their guests accepted and met the two at their table.

The dwarf, Norrund Isanæ, slammed a coin pouch on the table. “First round is on me,” he insisted. The human guard, Finnian Alastar, let on that he would drink but not too excess. He still had a job to do the next morning and a hungover state would not suit him, though his reservations to alcohol seemed to be much more than just work-related. The four swapped stories over drinks, with Chadwick convincing everyone to keep the conversation away from work.

“I’ve been lost in my work all my life, and it’s kept me away from making any friends,” spoke Chadwick as the group departed for the night. “I just want you all to know, even if we don’t see each other after reaching Lilinith’ri, that I’ll remember this evening. Today has been one of the best days I can remember because of all of you.”

Year 2440 – Firesday, April 29 – Sinking Ships

Two mornings after the great evening, the ship is expecting to arrive in Lilinith’ri by the evening. Finnian takes his post early in the morning to the greeting of a thick fog over the ocean water with very little wind. He waits patiently, watching as the crew rises to take their posts. Soon, his new friends arrive on deck. The gnome, Chadwick, seems particularly tired; something about hearing women screaming in his dreams.

Finnian and Vodarr both notice the Captain and a crew member pensively looking out behind the ship. Finnian heads over to the railing to look, Vodarr follows, and the elf hears a hum off in the distance. It isn’t long after he hears this that the Captain announces to everyone on deck that passengers must return to their cabins. Confused, Vodarr, Norrund, and Chadwick head down as Finnian prepares for trouble.

Pirates are coming.

Two ships outfitted with Osylith-created steam engines race to the cargo ship, weapons at the ready. Finnian raises his shield and gets behind it when a few bullets from a rifle pass right by his head. The warrior quickly retreats to an entry way to protect the passengers and to stop the pirates from making their way to the cargo deck.

Meanwhile, Norrund accompanies Vodarr and Chadwick as they go to their rooms to fetch their things. Chadwick has some supplies down in the cargo deck though that he desperately wants to procure. The three hurry through the passenger deck and down to the cargo hold. Amidst all of the rumbling from cannon fire hitting their ship, and a few tumbles, they find their way to Chadwick’s locked storage room. While he gathers his supplies, Vodarr and Norrund hear crying at the end of the hall. Upon checking the door, Vodarr finds out there are 200 people locked in the cargo hold and water is starting to rush in. Vodarr reaches into his Heward’s Handy Haversack of Life and pulls out a saw and a crowbar and attempts to break down the locks or break through the door. Norrund and Chadwick do not want to stay below deck in case the ship begins to sink, but Vodarr won’t leave without saving the people. They finally decide to leave Vodarr for now, hoping that he’ll come to his senses before it is too late.

The pirate ships continue to circle around the cargo ship, not making any effort to board. Finnian is confused by this, but has to get back even further as an airship flies in and fires on the cargo ship. Norrund, running up and being presented with the issue, has a sudden realization. The people locked in the cargo hold are human slaves, and these pirates are anti-human activists looking to kill them all. Finnian curses loudly and runs down below deck to attempt to save them before the humans don’t have any chance of survival by being pulled under with the sinking ship.

Finnian yells at Vodarr to move and he chops at the door with his halberd. The ship turns over onto its port-side just as Finnian breaks through the door, water rushing out of the cargo hold and into the hallway. Human bodies rush forth, forcing their way through the doors into other rooms. Wanting to save at least one human, Finnian grabs a child that surges forth from the doorway and into his arms. Chadwick and Norrund jump off the ship into the water, Vodarr and Finnian carrying the child right behind them.

The airship makes one run by the cargo ship, blasting it with its cannons, sending the ship up in flames and knocking out the survivors.

Year 2440 – Calistriaday, April 30 – Return to the Tragedy

Painful screams rang across the coast. It’s as if you fell asleep into a nightmare.

Finnian is foced awake to see the captain’s leg amputated by one of his subordinates. A large chunk of wood had impaled the leg and there was no hope of it being removed. The captain’s cries were both of incredible pain and immense relief that he may continue living. Finnian himself appears fine though, tightly gripping the child he saved. One of the crewmen takes watch of the boy as Finnian goes to assist other survivors.

Norrund comes up onshore and sees that Vodarr is resting by a large cave entrance. When Vodarr wakes, all he remembers is that Chadwick had pulled him up here. Other crewmen warn Finnian that the gnome had entered the cave, so Finnian takes the human child to take him up to a safe place at the cave and joins Norrund and Vodarr., who both worry for the gnome since there isn’t any sign of him.

Together, the three of them, Finnian carrying the child, venture into the dark cave. A trail of blood with small footprints imprinted sends them into worry, so they quicken their pace. The cave is narrow and goes deep. A quick battle with a set of cave fishers warns them of the dangers in here. The group slows their pace, but is nervous at the lack of any sign of Chadwick.

After a short hallway, they approach an empty room. Finnian plans to march on when he’s immediately intercepted by an Osyluth (bone devil) which appears before him. The osyluth lashes at Finnian only to disappear, nearly finishing the young warrior off, when a shadow appears and strikes the bone devil dead. “Kestral,” responds the shadow when asked his identity by Finnian. Kestral’s skill was immense compared to any of them, and on the chance they ran into another osyluth, the three thought it better to partner with this man to more quickly find their friend.

They continued through the cave with Kestral vanishing before them, but assuring he was there. The next room they came across was a man-made chapel; a few rows of pews sat before the pedestal holding a book. The room sends a shiver down their spines. Religion had been abolished for hundreds of years. What was a chapel like this doing so far down in a cave? Each adventurer approaches the pedestal to look at the book on display to see skull with a scythe adorn the front cover, and only one of them knew what it meant. Kestral warn the group not to touch it, and as they leave the room he stabs the book through with a dagger.

A long, winding hall takes them to a final room. An etching on the floor looks to be the same as the book, and a pile of twenty-to-thirty human bodies from the wreckage lay in a pile to the far left. Finnian sprints into the room, ignoring everything else to save Chadwick who is chained up to the wall. A form appears before him halfway, forcing him to come to a halt. Expecting to see another osyluth, he’s surprised when he sees Kestral come into view.

Kestral trips Finnian to the floor and looks to Chadwick. The rune on the floor begins to radiate a green light and a green aura comes forth from the gnome. The gnome falls limp. Lifeless.

“And now, I shall awaken!” Kestral yells out, emitting a similar green aura from his body that surges forth into Chadwick. Kestral’s dark cloak becomes a shadow that envelops the room in complete darkness, and when the light returns he is nowhere to be seen. Finnian chops Chadwick down only to be met with a very sour, out-of-character gnome.

The party having now rescued Chadwick leaves the cave as quickly as possible. Upon arrival to the entrance, they are met with congratulations as all of the survivors have met up at the cave mouth to avoid being seen by any pirates. They are happy that the gnome is safe, and it isn’t too long till a caravan bearing the sigils of Lilinith’ri ride forth to the party.

Growing Deadlier

I look in the mirror and I no longer see myself. This isn’t metaphor—my face is truly no longer my own. He is trying to claim my body for himself. I do not know how he can do this—I had hoped that the binding of Terra would have severed, or at least blocked, our connection, but somehow it persists. If sealing his world cannot break this bond, I fear there is nothing that will allow me escape. My only option is to persist in my original mission. I must kill the final god. I do not know how I can do this now—we are on opposite sides of an unbreakable wall, but somehow I must find a way. I have seen so much of the worlds that are out there—I cannot allow Him to ruin them all. I need to find a way to return home, to return to His hell. Either He will die at my hand or we will languish in His prison together for all eternity.

Moonfall

Following the leads I found led me to the plane known as Minor where I met a group of adventurers known as The Savior’s Hand. The end result of that encounter has become known across the planes as the Moonfall Incident. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. What you’ve heard is very far from the truth.

Survival Mode

The next world I landed on was uninhabited. At least what I saw of it was. The portal opened to the middle of a damn forest. At least I figured out what Soni’s bracelet did pretty quick—it seemed to be some sort of traveler’s aid, reducing the need for food and rest, and protecting from all but the most extreme weather conditions. Figures—all those times she needled me for shivering when we were stuck in the mountains with no supplies—she was cheating.

The bracelet wasn’t perfect, however, at least not on this world. I still needed to eat, which meant I got plenty of chances to practice a skill I’d never really bothered to work on—hunting. Stealthily killing things, seems like I’d be a natural, right? Well, it turns out stalking animals is different from stalking people, and I’m only really talented at one of those. Still I managed to get good enough to survive, and managed to cobble together a halfway decent shelter as well. But I couldn’t stay in one place too long. I had no intention on spending the rest of my days stranded in a forest. Sonitri was certain that the portal wasn’t random. It led here specifically, and there had to be a reason.

I spent several months looking for that reason. There’s not much to tell about it, really. Eventually the forest gave way to plains, which gave way to a desert, which led to an ocean. It was an at-times beautiful and wildly diverse world, it just had nothing going on. There were monsters, at night, sometimes, but nothing I wasn’t capable of defending myself against. In all likelihood, I’d still be there if it weren’t for more dumb luck, the one-and-only sign of intelligent life I discovered there. Or rather, death. The corpse of some explorer. I was certain he or she was from off-world, as the few intact rations in her pack contained several magical scrolls, most of them depleted, but one still intact, with the spell for planar travel. It took me weeks to decipher the scroll—drawing on ancient memories and deciphering runes from context in the would-be explorer’s spellbook. But somehow I managed to pull it off. And with no outside interference from horrible gods, I successfully transported myself to the one world I knew with any certainty—the closest thing I have now to a home. The Astral plane.

In Case of Trouble

This world is, in many ways, unlike anything I have ever seen before. Blue men and women who bleed water and claim to be reborn upon death, in an endless cycle. Rivers of thick molten silver that slowly poison any who dare enter. Creatures that turn to stone when startled or threatened. And yet, for all that is different, there is so much that remains the same. People with power lording over those without. Good men and women punished for the actions of bad. Senseless violence, carried out for the pettiest of reasons. Injustice of all sorts, both natural and man-made, carried out against those who cannot resist it. And that’s where I come in. I am a stranger to your world, yet I care for it as though it were my own. I am a refugee, a survivor, the only human known to this realm. My name is Kestral, and I am here to help.

I resumed my old practice as the Man Who Solves Problems. If I’m going to be stuck here for a while, I might as well find something to do. It took a while for business to pick up, of course—who’s going to seek out a strange-looking man who knows impossibly little about the world for help?—but I was sure a little freelance work would go a long way. My first case was simple, at least on paper. Bunch of kobolds, or their local counterpart, at any rate, been raiding a nearby city and the king’s guard refuses to do anything about it without some special compensation. Enter the hero. I’ve fought automatons, vampires, even helped defeat a god. Surely some overgrown lizards won’t be a problem. And all for a little free room and board at the local inn. Win-win.
Except, turns out there’s a law against vigilantism in this country. King doesn’t want his citizens getting hurt doing something outside their station. Or more likely is worried that if his subjects get too autonomous they’ll question what exactly all their taxes are funding, since it sure isn’t public works or national defense. And all those people who suddenly found their kobold problem neatly resolved sure were quiet when the guards decided it was suddenly time to start doing their job.

But I’ve wasted enough time in jail and if the kobolds’ witch-queen and her twin barbtongues weren’t a problem for me, some overpaid and underworked watchmen sure as hell wouldn’t be. So, strike one on the grand heroics then. But I did fix the problem, and I didn’t kill any of the guards, so when the story of a dangerous insurgent spread throughout the kingdom, it was followed by another story, quieter, yet somehow easier to hear. A story of roguish intrigue and swift action, with just a hint of rebellion. It was a popular story. And when a man turned up in a nearby city pub two weeks later with a fresh spin on the story a strong resemblance to the recently circulated wanted posters, no one left to find the night watch. But just about everyone volunteered their own stories when the man had finished, each one carrying a common theme—problems the king’s guard just didn’t seem to be concerned about.

A number of those stories were, more or less, the same story. Entire families, killed. No, not just killed, slaughtered. Used to be this sort of thing would happen from time to time. Isolated incidents going back years. Everyone typically just blamed it on wild dogs or something. But lately it had been happening more frequently. And with a common twist—in every family, one of the kids would be missing.

I got as much information about the killings as I could—locations, family backgrounds, parents’ occupations, anything that might connect them, but it all seemed to be random. So I tried following up on the missing children, but again, I turned up nothing. I might have had to give up were it not for one thing, sheer dumb luck. One thing I’ve noticed in my travels is that magic from my homeworld doesn’t always behave the same on other planes. On some they’re so weak they’re almost mundane. On others they simply behave differently. On this world, the Skin of the Vampire, the sheer cloaklike material given to me by the vampire lord, seemed to enhance my senses in addition to my physical capabilities—but only at night. So when I was skulking around a back alley one night, just wandering somewhat aimlessly, I was able to hear a faint struggle from several blocks away. Screams and an animal-like snarling.

I found the source of the commotion, too late to help. A large, vaguely wolfish creature was standing over the eviscerated corpses of the family that had, until moments earlier, lived there. Hearing me approach, the creature turned and fled the scene. I gave chase, endeavoring to stay out of sight. Eventually it led me to the entrance of an underground tunnel in an abandoned part of the city. Inside was rows of cages containing beastial-looking humanoids—some ferociously raging against their prisons, others laying listlessly, looking somewhat emaciated. The beast I had been chasing ran to the back of the room, too dark for even my heightened vision to see. I crept after it, hoping the other creatures’ reactions wouldn’t give my presence away. As I got closer, I realized the beast was no longer there, instead two humanoid figures were standing there—a man and a child. The child was naked and as my vision focused, I realized he was covered in blood, but not wounded in any way. The man was speaking to him, softly in a language I didn’t understand. After a moment he reached out to the child, who flinched in fear, not unlike a cornered dog, and ushered him into a cage like those of the beastoids.

Then it clicked. The children hadn’t simply been kidnapped. The children were the killers. Something was causing children in this town to turn into beasts and slaughter their families. And this man was responsible. He didn’t see me coming. He couldn’t have. In the darkness I am but a shadow myself. I could have simply stabbed him then and been done with it. But that would be sloppy. Unprofessional. I’m not here to avenge, I’m here to resolve the problem. I need to know what he’s doing, why. So instead I confronted him.

He laughed, told me I had no right to stop his experiments. They were sanctioned. I told him I didn’t care. Then I cut off his left hand. Which I was hoping would be intimidating, but he didn’t terribly bothered by it. It did convince him, though, that wasn’t willing to leave quietly, so we skipped right to the fighting. He almost gained the upper hand when he opened the cages and set the starving beast-children on me. But then he blew it by boasting that his serums were irreversible, which removed any compunctions I had about killing them. He also revealed that he was working alone, on a grant from the palace itself, on a way to increase the strength of their soldiers. Which removed any compunctions I had about killing him. Losing a hand may not have bothered him, but losing a head was a different matter.

Looking through his supplies, I found detailed notes of his experiments. So detailed, I was pretty sure anyone in the city, regardless of their loyalties, would take issue with them. I also found a number of concoctions, most of which I destroyed, but two, labeled “tissue regeneration” that I decided to hang onto. I also dealt with the final child, the one I had followed. He looked fully human, but moved and reacted like a sick animal. I did what I could for him.

After delivering the alchemist’s notes to the city guard, I moved on, not wanting to gamble on their continued goodwill. As I visited other cities, I started to notice a trend of particularly awful behavior, all allegedly sanctioned by the palace itself. As I journeyed, I worked my way closer to the capital city. The closer I got, the more heavily guarded the cities became, but the word of my exploits traveled faster than I did, so as the cities became less accessible, the citizens became more helpful.

Eventually, I made it to the capital. There was a big confrontation with the king, in his own palace. His traitorous advisers were exposed and their complex villainous plots defeated, and the king swore to abandon his plans for war and instead spend his money to improve his kingdom, and he gave me his blessing to travel freely within his kingdom as a friend of the court. It was all very boring and not at all worth expanding on in any way.

With unrestricted travel and no more need for anonymity, I finally set up shop like I had planned to, at least in a sense. At this point, my reputation was already taking on the shape of a local legend, so it made more sense for me to play to that and take a more nomadic approach. I seem to be drawn to trouble these days.

At one point, I even thought I might have had a lead on my own quest. A samsarin cleric named Sonitri, who claimed to have been bestowed great power by her god Ramna. Her lead seemed promising—as she had access to powerful magic she had no way of learning, and claimed knowledge of events long forgotten, much of which we were able to verify in time. But typically, it led nowhere useful. Ramna was no god, merely an extraordinarily powerful sorcerer with absolute control over the writers of his day. He was also a past life of Sonitri, whose magic and memories had persisted across nearly a dozen rebirths with an unprecedented degree of strength. Were it not for my experiences, and the existence of the astral plane, my travels among the planes of reality would do much to convince me that the gods themselves never even existed. I am the closest a god has come to these parts in untold lifetimes.

Despite our findings, Sonitri remained an ally—she valued the truth above the fulfillment of her desires, and for that she will always have my respect. Together, we leveraged everything we had discovered together to become semi-official fact-finders, or debunkers, as she liked to call us. Our work wasn’t always appreciated—the truth so often unappealing and undervalued—but I like to believe that our efforts made this world a better place.

So when we discovered the portal, I actually considered staying. I don’t think I would ever feel at home on that plane, but I had found a purpose in it all the same. Was that something to so casually abandon for the complete unknown? Sonitri didn’t want me to go. She enjoyed being seen with the strange pale man, the local hero for hire in case of trouble. Telling people about all the incredible alien things I’d shared with her about my world (many of them even true). She’d never admit, but she’d miss me—I could see it in her face, as she urged me to leave. She knew little about my true quest, but she knew I had one, and she knew no answers to it lay on her world. The only way for me was forward.

I left her my Boots of Escape as a parting gift. Their range on this world was significantly farther than usual, and I was sure she’d be able to use them better than I. She wrinkled her nose at that—deriding either the apparent sign of affection or smell of my feet—but I noticed she wasted no time in donning them. In return, she gave me her bracelet—a relic of Ramna, from our first adventure together. She’d always refused to tell me what it did. We said our heartfelt goodbyes—a combined total of nine words—and without further hesitation, she activated the portal and I stepped forward, toward my fate.

Moving on

An instant. That’s all it takes to change a life forever. A boy sees his parents slaughtered and grows up in the time it takes their bodies to hit the floor. A young man sees his everything go up in flames and sheds his life without a second thought. A grifter takes his first life in cold blood. And that, well, that’s a path you can’t walk back. A man, older than his years, steps onto an airship and leaves his world forever.

Once again I am an orphan, more now than ever before. For now even Terra itself is beyond my reach. My pleas, while recognized by the council, were not enough to convince them to abandon their plan. We won our war, but our victory cannot exonerate the crimes we have committed. And yet, despite my earlier panic at the thought of the sealing, I find myself oddly at peace with the proceedings. After all, the world I am abandoning bares little resemblance to the one I remember, one which steadily removed everything that could tie me to it. If I believed in fate, I might say that it was preparing me for this very moment, preparing me to leave it behind. No, I do not mourn my latest loss—for once I am not an exile. This time my home is the one being exiled. I am what is left standing.

After the sealing I remained at Tu’narath for a time. As the sentry of the dead gods, they have amassed a considerable library, with a special focus on religions and religious lore. “Amassed” being the key word, as it was immediately clear that nobody ever bothered to organize the collection. I doubt most of the tomes had ever even been looked at before. These people are more hoarders than scholars. As such, I didn’t actually learn much during my stay, reading only enough to sort and catalog the material. It was not particularly interesting work, so when a distraction eventually arose, I was quick to take it.

A jumper, they called him. An old friend of mine once claimed such a name, which is why it caught my attention at all. If his abilities were anything like hers, however, he must have been doing it far longer, for his jumps spanned worlds. He had come, it turns out, seeking me. The sealing of our plane had attracted his attention. Suddenly, a world that had never really struck his interest was inaccessible to him. So naturally he wanted to know everything he could about it. I strung him along for a bit, honestly preferring not to think about it. But my curiosity was starting to grow. The number of other worlds out there is staggering. Surely somewhere out there would be answers to my questions. And even if I turned up nothing, would it not better to turn up nothing out there, where I could maybe do something useful in the process, rather than here among stuffy old books?

If I’m being honest, I was getting restless. I’ve spent more of my life than I’d like confined in one way or another. As terrible as the road is, as adventures can be, at least they’ve always made me aware how alive I am. Sitting here in the library, day in and day out, was becoming nothing but a prison of my own making. So I made a deal with the jumper—show me the universe, and I will tell you about mine. Which is, loosely, how I ended up here. Stranded on an alien world, the lone human, from a sealed plane that has already become more myth than fact. My life, yet again, changed in an instant. And I’m rather looking forward to whatever happens next.

Thorman

Again, we find ourselves at the end of our hope. A normal man, reaches a point in his life where he must choose to live or die, choose to fight or fail, choose to to change the world..or to live in it. I have reached this precipices one too many times and stared ahead into the unknown. As I stand in this room and listen to friends, companions and allies bicker, strategize and plot..I remember we all have seen and done more in our lifetimes than should be asked of anyone. Two great evils have surfaced and must be destroyed. We have access to a power we once tried to stop but that might be used to our advantage..or our doom. We have too many questions and not enough answers. The enemy is infinite in number, and even sits among our own ranks. We know of possible places and people we could use, could seek out, but none are certain. This is the knowledge that is shared, scoffed at and thrown around by all of us..but no one really knows what we should do..no one really knows if anything will work..if their decision is the right one..including me.

In the end..I know that even the god is not what will end the world..at least not how we’ve seen it. I know the monster that lurks in the dark..the unknown..the unseen is what will end it all. Doran…is always one step ahead. We tried to locate pieces of the new amulate..thinking..hoping it would lead us to a location to cast the storm..both leads..the minotaur and the vampire..had already been payed a visit. We returned to the inn where we started..with nothing new..no advancement..no progress. We decide to let everyone rest..hoping to follow the minotaur to our next mistep. I took a walk out to the monument..Hedar follows. After piecing together two pieces of the amulet..his condition has worsened. I still see him..but Doran is far more plain to see. He tells me he no longer can see the real me..that the monster is all that’s left to him. I wonder if that’s how he has started to see himself. He tells me we can’t let him win..and what must be done should we activate the storm. After seeing Heuburt..what’s left of him..I can’t blame him for not wanting to leave his fate to chance. It’s the same reason I’ve grown to respect Balidor’s decision. Only in my millennium have I come to accept that at any moment I may no longer exist. I have already lived far longer than anyone should be deemed worthy to…and I have to remember that not everyone is afforded that comfort in death. Hedar leaves and I make for the waters below.

In my years of training..I often sought solitude even from the quiet of the monastery. I missed the long walks of my past..of seeing the stars above and knowing only them. As I float in the water and see every single glimmering light..I wonder if Doran ever looked up at this same sky. I know he has..but I have come to realize he was one who wanted to know every point of light..every single nuance in space and time. He is not one to let something unexpected..or unknown occur. Every move we make is one he has layed out for us. We continue to run down his path..blindly following the bread crumbs he’s left behind. We will do so in the morning..and we will find not but wisps of his trail and laughter. We cannot keep playing his game. There is no winning it…even if we chose not to play. Just like every pin hole in this vast canopy..there are options..efforts and actions we haven’t tried. We must exhaust every opportunity and use every angle…he is not a god…and I should know…no matter how old you may be…you cannot know…nor plan for every outcome.

I will tell them in the morning. Something burns inside me…and I know I will see it heard. We will fail if we try what is known to us…if we try what he has touched..what he knows. We have all come too far simply to fail together. I think we’ve all known..but just don’t want to accept..that at the end of all this..few will remain to rejoice. We all have powers and destiny’s that we don’t fully understand…nor does he. As I climb back up and face the inn where everyone rests…I know that come first light…things will change forever.

My name was Thorman Redfield, but today..I embrace the monster I’ve become.

Hedar
Upon our journey to Arkhen we spotted a dwarf sitting in the open tundra of Torin. Upon landing near him I immediately sensed Borsho’s necromancy. He assumed I had brought Thorman and Jhulaer as reinforcements to force the spell’s knowledge from him. While not entirely true, I did what I could to explain our situation to him without altering the course of history on his part. We questioned him on where he had come across knowledge of something so powerful. He said it was in an old spellbook in an abandoned house in the city of Spellscale. Though I cannot see facial expressions, I assumed Jhulaer and Thorman shared the same reaction as I. Once again everything points at him. Doran. All of this planned out from the beginning.
Borsho eventually handed me the papers for Cepasec (sp?), a thick document of a single spell in written form. Borsho didn’t need the papers anymore, for he had memorized the whole thing. We bid the dwarven necromancer farewell and headed into Arkhen for supplies and rest. Once we had found lodging and taken care of trivial tasks, Jhulaer mentioned a vision she had with Roz. She informed us that one last use of her time travel ability was available, but only for her and one of us. Thorman, or what I now see as the parasite, became very adamant that he should be left behind. He desired to retrain himself now that he had lost a part of his power in those two blades. If it were not for Doran’s strong corruption over me I would have thought to train with him. We had to leave him, but I suggested we use magic as a means to suspend him from the confines of time so that we may awaken him again when we return to the present. Where I belong. We bought scrolls of temporal stasis and freedom to freeze and unlock him, but he was responsible for finding a caster to freeze him. As for the location, we decided it must be near the sanctuary Balidor had created. Jhulaer suggested engraving a message that could only be seen from afar, a message very few could read. God killer. After all was said and done, Jhulaer used her last bit of power to transport her and I back to the present. She was able to take us to the sanctuary. We observed hundreds of dragons flying above us. Trevan and Terra greeted us, saying Finean had spoken of an extraordinary event to occur at this place on this day. Jhulaer took her dragon form and burrowed her way to where Thorman, the parasite, was sealed away. We greeted him and made our way to the inn of Da’Voreth to find Alton. There we began to discuss tactics as to what must be done to prevent the destruction that will come.
It was then that I began to question our intentions regarding this spell. In practice, it will have the capability to destroy Erythnul, but in turn we will likely destroy much more in that attempt. And if Erythnul possesses the ability to use Cepasec, this will, by common laws of magic, neutralize his use of the spell. Even if we prevent our own destruction in such a manner, we would need to cast it again, an entire day’s time, to finish the god off. In addition to all of this, everything that we have recently discovered, nearly everything we have ever seen or witnessed, has also been seen by the parasite lurking inside Thorman, now even stronger from dwelling within him for a longer duration. This parasite, its origins stem from Doran. For all I know, Doran may be seeing everything I see now, considering my current state. And though Cepasec is said to be a ‘god killer’ all of us have seen Doran’s power transcend the power of gods. Even Erythnul said Doran was the reason for his existence. I highly doubt Cepasec will destroy Doran, and if it does, it will have been his plan, benefiting him in the end. Balidor, or Pelor shall we say, witnessed Zassimick fall at the hands of Doran as well as himself. And then there is the amulet of Erythnul. Another path we could take, though putting the pieces together would likely make more of Doran’s plans fall into place. These paths of power… they all seem like answers to us because we have found nothing better to aid us to our desired end. We will cast Cepasec, we will repair the amulet of Erythnul, we will destroy the Orchard of Mines, we will kill Erythnul, we will confront Doran… but none of it will matter. We cannot control fate. It controls us, for it is me. I control fate. Doran controls fate. Like Doran, I too am beyond the gods. I will end this world. I will start this world. And so the raven bathed in blood shall signal the world’s freedom.

Jhulaer De-Ath

I find myself lying awake, tossing and turning in my bed. When sleep does finally come, it’s not as I expect. Instead I find myself back glassy dark shore where I once held Raz in his final moments. As I watch the black sea crash against the rocks, I hear a familiar voice. Is this really a dream? Raz stands behind me, the same worn down, exhausted Raz I held in my arms. As we spoke for the last time, he said that he had seen this happen, and knew I’d need the guidance. He confirmed my fears and told me that I had lost the power to control time for good, and that likely only a tiny remnant of that power remained, and even then, it would only be enough to get myself and one other back to our time. He also spoke of the storm and revealed that he had played a part in it’s creation. The storm is the only way to stop Eurythnal, and we desperately need to find a copy of it so that we can stop him once and for all. That would require Borsho, and a pure place that touches all other places. Raz confirmed that the Oasis was one such place, and that Thormin would know one other if he thought about it. Saying goodbye to Raz for the last time, I found myself once again in my bed.

Seeking Thorman and finding him absent, I sought out Hedar. Leaving the inn, we headed for the arena, in hopes of making some coin either by betting or competing. Upon hearing that the first bout would start in minutes, I quickly went to place a wager, but after hearing the first name I knew I didn’t need to hear any more, and it explained where Thorman had gone. Placing 50 grand on the counter for the chance at the 10-1 odds against " The Abandoned" I quickly hurried to my seat. However, it became quickly apparent that a fair fight, this was not. As Thorman entered the arena, and at the command of the King, some Emman from long ago, guards and warriors surrounded my friend, as well as two dragons springing from the portals created by Thorman’s would-be opponent. Sending Thorman a message I offered assistance, but he declined, demanding we do not get involved. I understood. This was Thorman’s fight. Thorman’s bloodlust. Thorman’s search for meaning. As Thorman raged on, attempting to fight off everyone, he showed his power well, pummeling his opponents and pinning one dragon by himself, yet it was clear that the odds were not in his favor. Sensing his own defeat, Thorman resigned to his loss. But since when is he one to go away quietly? In a flash Hedar appeared beside him, and in a second flash, they were gone.

After slipping out of the arena, and refusing to take any less than I had bet in the return of my funds, we met up outside the city. Explaining briefly the importance of gaining the power of the storm spell, we teleported near Borsho’s city, and upon flying the last leg of the journey in dragon form, I carried my companions one step closer to our goal.